Type the word "student" into Google, and the first option that comes up in the 10-deep list of autocomplete suggestions is "student loans." Third down is "student loan consolidation." Keep going and you'll pass "student loan forgiveness," "student loan calculator," "student loans without cosigner," and something called "studentloan.com" before you hit bottom. For the Internet age's first generation of college graduates, the words "student" and "loan" have become nearly inseparable. In 1996, according to a U.S. Department of Education study, 58 percent of U.S. students graduated with debt, and those debt holders owed an average of $13,200. By 2008, the percentage of grads in the red had climbed to 66 percent and their average debt to $23,200. But the cost, according to Edie Irons, spokeswoman for the Project on Student Debt, extends even beyond those numbers.

"There is no doubt that there are widespread effects on society as a result of having a majority of our college graduates begin their working lives with tens of thousands of dollars in debt," Irons said, noting that such burdens can discourage graduates from buying homes, starting families, forming businesses, pursuing postgraduate degrees, and making certain career choices. "We know that it is difficult for a lot of borrowers to afford careers in teaching, public service, social work—important but low-paying professions."

Acting isn't exactly social work, but it certainly can be low-paying. With the Obama administration's push last week to overhaul the way federal student-loan money is distributed, much about student debt may be about to change. But will reform ease the pressure on borrowers? And how do actors, for whom making a living can be patchwork even in the good times, hold up under that pressure?

Private Parts

Since Lyndon B. Johnson was in the White House, private lenders have received subsidies to provide federally funded loans to students. An Obama administration proposal currently grinding its way through Congress would cut out the middlemen, eliminating subsidies and routing all federal money through the Department of Education's direct loan program, potentially saving the government tens of billions of dollars. But according to Irons, the impact of the legislation for borrowers would be less than earthshaking. "The difference would just be who your lender is, who you send your check to," she said.

Irons added that students could benefit from a proposed diversion of some of the savings to increased Pell Grants, which don't have to be repaid, and Perkins Loans, which are need-based and come with low interest rates. But reform legislation faces a perilous path through Congress—one that involves it being attached, along with health-care reform, to a budget-reconciliation measure—and, according to reports, Pell Grants and Perkins Loans could be among the political casualties. Meanwhile, students are forced to spend far more than their parents did on their educations. "College costs have risen faster than inflation, faster than wages, faster than pretty much all other indicators besides health-care costs," Irons said.

Anya Kamenetz is the author of the forthcoming book "DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education." She identified a phenomenon called "cost shifting"—in which the relentless budget cuts handed by states to public universities are passed along year after year to students through tuition increases—as one of two factors that have driven up the cost of college. The other is the availability of loans. "We saw in the mortgage crisis that the fact that there was all this easy money around to pay for houses was a huge factor in driving up the price," Kamenetz said. "I see the same thing going on in education. Families were not as sensitive to price increases, because they had loans to make up the difference. They saw that education was extremely important, so they did everything they could." With more students headed to college and more money available to send them there, demand increased and supply became more expensive.

According to Kamenetz, reform legislation could have a positive impact by weakening the student loan industry's influence in Washington, which she credits with forcing changes to bankruptcy law in 1998 and 2005 that made it almost impossible for a borrower to escape from federal student-loan debt and private student-loan debt, respectively. "They have a lot of money, and they go to Washington, and their goal there is to get students to be more indebted," she said. "It's about taking the teeth out of that lobby."

Like Irons and Kamenetz, Tamara Draut, vice president of policy and programs at the public-policy institute Demos, hailed last year's passage by Congress of the income-based repayment plan as an instance when the government struck in favor of borrowers. The plan sets federal student-loan payments at 15 percent of a borrower's discretionary income and forgives all remaining debt after 25 years. A proposal in this year's federal budget would lower payments to 10 percent and the threshold for forgiveness to 20 years. But Draut warned that such measures do not fix systemic flaws. "I look at income-based repayment as really helping the most burdened of graduates," she said. "It isn't helping your typical college grad who has a job and lives in a high-cost city. Therefore, 10 percent of their income going to student loan payments is a serious burden that is not going to be helped by this new program."

Emotional Money

It's safe to say that following graduation, most actors find themselves drawn to high-cost cities. As a social worker in the financial wellness program at the Actors Fund in New York, Amanda Clayman counsels actors struggling with debt. Thanks to the higher cost of education and a "more aggressive collections environment," she said, student loans are becoming a more common issue in her work.

"Student loans are a fixed cost and a very rigid cost," Clayman said. "Just like rent, it's something that performers need to try to cover on a monthly basis, and sometimes that means having to put time into sideline work. Or it means they need to be savvy and conservative when they get lump-sum compensation, to really try to have a big contingency fund to cover those fixed costs when they go a long time between jobs."

Clayman said the way actors deal with debt is complicated by "the emotional side of how artists relate to money." Unlike workers in other fields, where the concept of success is tied to income, actors, according to Clayman, tend to associate success with their work itself rather than the financial rewards it brings. Also, actors put many hours into auditions and training, but they get paid only when they book a gig. "There are just so many different elements to an actor's financial life that it can feel really fragmented for them," she said.

Some actors Clayman has met have found themselves in debt so severe that she has had to counsel them to shift their focus to another career and continue to act part time. That's not a message that any young actor preparing to enter a theater program is going to want to hear after graduation. But barring unforeseen, sweeping changes in how college is paid for, it's a message many will have to face. Draut, for one, sees little to be hopeful about, regardless of what happens with current legislation.

"I don't think we're looking at any progress in the immediate future," she said. "We'll be lucky if it stabilizes. I don't find myself having very many uplifting conversations these days."